Spent a good part of the night crying tonight. Saying goodbye to possibilities, to a dream. I've known for over a month now that Mike and I weren't going to happen, but it is still sad to turn away. I erased all the emails, etc. that he sent me.

Spent a couple of hours talking to a man that my parents thought would be perfect for me. LOL He's very nice, but boring. They are trying to turn me from my evil ways by setting me up with nice, religious men. Grrrr... I don't need someone to tame me. LOL Imagine that... to someone I am too wild and crazy.

There is nothing calling me to this one.

There is another fellow who found me online. He seems nice, but he started off with the "you seem too good to be true" line. I hit him with my past in point form... no details, so that will probably be the last I hear from him.

If my past doesn't get rid of them, my body does. My soul... doesn't seem to enter into the equation. And then, the one man who did want me... I felt nothing for.

And thus mourning the relationship that should have been.
 

Okay, third entry in a row, but I just realized something.

Maybe the reason I get weird has as much to do as hating the crazy in myself as it does with being worried that someone else will hate the crazy in me?

Last night, a little bit of crazy spilled out... I went as far as the cryptic stage, and Friend was able to pull me out of the cycle. I told myself at the time that it was because Friend has been helping me so much with all the crap and confusion over the break up of my recent relationship that I didn't want to bring it up for the 800th night in a row.

Maybe it has as much to do with feeling ashamed about the way I am trying to deal with my ex-boyfriend. I know part of it is that I am showing inconsistency and I don't like anyone to see that. Especially me.

Tonight the craziness was over something else. This time I spun out... but why did I go there?

I guess the real question is, if there are parts of me that I am ashamed to show... why am I not behaving in a manner that eliminates those parts? Why don't I just act and do and say everything in the most honorable and true manner?

Or am I judging myself too harshly? With my ex, I really don't want to hurt him. I want this ending to be something that he sees as necessary. I want him to understand that I am as bad a match for him as I believe he is for me. But I am also terrified of hurting him... and I wonder if the kid gloves aren't on because of that fear? Is my fear making me act in a way that will cause him more hurt, unnecessary hurt?

Is my fear and loathing of my unhappier bits hurting Friend? Do they hurt everyone? Does my desire to make everything okay, and have no one upset with me or anyone else do the same thing?

Man, I need to work on this. I need to spend some serious time chatting with my higher power and get right with myself and this. It can't go on. No one deserves to be saddled with my crazy because I am trying to hide little bits of me that shouldn't be there to start with.
 

A friend put me onto the television show "Scrubs". I love it, and now own the first two seasons. There is this one episode in the second season where Eliot has been dating this male nurse for a while and problems start to develop because he feels like she is holding back and hiding stuff from him, and she is... she is holding back and hiding the CRAZY! All the weird crap about her that is completely insane.

In the show, it turns out that Carla is also hiding all sorts of crazy. I laughed and was congratulating myself on my lack of crazy when I saw that.

UNTIL TONIGHT!

OMG!!! I have soooo much crazy. It isn't weird stuff like worrying about whether I have something in my teeth or pit stains, or toilet snakes... but it is all sorts of crazy.

Here is my crazy:

1) I never want to impose on someone. If I feel like I am imposing, I pull back.

2) If I think someone has got the wrong idea about me, something I have said, or something I have done, I explain until I am, as my best friend said... blue in the face. I will literally explain until someone tells me to shut up.

3) Freak out damage control or... the night of a thousand apologies. I chase after the terrified person, saying I am sorry and explaining some more and things get sad from there.

4) If I feel the slightest bit unsure of myself in a situation... I go cryptic. I decide to minimize the damage to myself by seriously downplaying everything, thus, usually ending up making a waaaaaay bigger deal of things than if I just spat it out.

I am sure there is tons more crazy, but I just can't think of them right now to itemize their extent.

Every single time the crazy starts to come out... I go cryptic. I try to give as little info as I can get away with. I so have got to stop doing this.

Most of my friends just shrug when the cryptic comes out, and tell themselves, just Kim being weird again, and leave it. But, I have a friend who holds me to a higher standard than that... and that is a good thing, because it is a standard that I try to hold myself to.

Anyway, I start to feel some crazy leaking out, dripping on my friend, so I immediately go into stage one craziness, I pull back, try to do damage control, and go cryptic. Friend calls me on cryptic... I slide right into crazy stage two... explaining to death.

Tonight, I did stage two a couple of times as different ways I had screwed up and given Friend the wrong idea occured to me... and Friend ran away. Justly so. But that brings me to crazy stage 3... the night of a thousand apologies...

Immediately upon Friend hanging up, I wrote an email apologizing, explaining and ending with the realization that I am writing here. Then I caught myself... I asked myself if I should send the email... another friend who was laughing at me and with me at all the crazy told me to press delete and I did.

What is wrong with me? If I am feeling needy and weird and like I am imposing on someone, why don't I just say nothing? Why don't I just keep the whole damned thing to myself?

Why don't I just let the crazy drip out... like Carla said on Scrubs, let the crazy out in small doses here and there? I know friend can handle crazy. Friend has done so more times than I want to admit to myself, and I have not been let down. So, why don't I trust the important people to take and accept me as I am?

Well, no more trying to hide the crazy and then ending up spilling a 60 gallon industrial drum of extra strength crazy all over Friend. No more cryptic. No more over-explaining (that one is going to be hard), no more apologies for my craziness unless it actually hurts someone. For the most part, I am awesome. Besides, without a little crazy, how dull could I possibly be?
 

Sometimes I swear I am indeed the thickest human skull to walk the planet! I see things a certain way and it never occurs to me that someone might be seeing or saying something else entirely.

Most alarmingly, the blind spot is with myself most of the time. Last night I had a man telling me that we needed to work on ourselves so that we could be in a relationship. I asked him what he thought we needed to work on... he said lots of stuff. I asked him what he wanted to work on... he said losing weight so that he could be the sort of man he wants to be in a relationship. I said, okay... What do you think I need to work on?

His reply was, "Isn't there anything about yourself that you want to work on?"

I go on blithely thinking that he is referring to my mental and emotional health, which is very much in question tonight... but he wasn't. He meant my weight. That's too funny. Sometimes I have such a blind spot.

But, the stupidity does not end there... oh no! Why do I keep repeating patterns that I know are disasterous? Yes, I am working on them, but they keep sneaking up on me... Yep, sometimes I am sooo stupid... for the continuing story of my stupidity... see next entry...
 

I can be an incredibly selfish person. I hate that about myself. I hate that I have the little needy voice inside my head and inside the empty spot in my heart that tells me to take what I can get and be happy with it, even if it means lying to myself, and to someone else.

Tonight I put that aside. Tonight I actually managed to wrestle that bit of me to the ground and get it to shut up. It was a good thing. I am glad to have done it, if just for a moment or two. Maybe now it will be easier to keep doing.
 

I watched the Phantom of the Opera tonight... the movie version. I saw the stage version several years ago, and admit I didn't remember most of the story. Some of the music is amazing. But anyway... getting to the point... When I told a wdc female friend that I had seen it, she asked, "Didn't you love the Phantom?"

My reply was, "Not in the least. I am not attracted to homicidal lunatics no matter how tortured they are."

So, why is that? I have other female friends who are insane for the character of Severus Snape from the Harry Potter series. Why? There is nothing about the character that appeals to me in the least. Again though, there is the tortured soul theme.

I have a theory. My theory for the reason that I am not attracted to men like those characters is the fact that I have absolutely NO need or desire to save someone. Not a man anyway. I don't want or need to be the factor in someone's life that saves them from some inner torment. I don't need to change anyone.

This is a fairly new idea for me. Not the lack of desire to change anyone, but the accompanying idea that if someone doesn't fit into my life... if they don't want to, or can't for whatever reason, I don't have to turn myself inside out to make my life fit them. People don't have to like me. Men don't have to want to be with me. I don't have to need them to want me.

I like that. I like the fact that I only have to include people in my life who truly care about me, and who fit with the way I see the world. There will be others, people I care about who don't fit as well, but they can remain on the more outer levels.

I never really loved people. I wanted to, but no one ever really gave me the chance. I think we are programmed to be a little freaked out by having people love us. Even if they don't expect anything from us, we still feel somehow vulnerable to them... as if they will always be trying to wear us down and make us love them back. Why is it that we can't just let someone adore us and not feel that discomfort? Hmmm... something to think about.

Anyway... I never really loved people until recently. I like it. LOL I had a lot of love to give stored up for a long time, and I am glad to finally have people to wrap up in it. Maybe that is the fear... being wrapped up.

My point, finally... the person I love most in this world, I love because of who they are. There are things that I hope that they are able to change for themself, but I have absolutely no desire to change them. They have rough edges, and hurting places, and angry places, and I love all of them. I feel tenderness and compassion for the sore spots, but no need to save this person from their wounds. They are strong, and beautiful, and smart, and creative, and capable of doing their own damned saving.

Once I would have thought the situation I am in was terribly sad. But I didn't understand anything about the true nature of real love. Not the romantic infatuation thing, but real, deep and unshakeable love. The real deal. Real love doesn't need to produce anything. It doesn't need to tip the equation to our side of the equals sign. It doesn't need to be reciprocated, or to give us anything in return. It just is, and it is happy as it is because of its truth.

That is real risk. I never got it when people said that it took courage to love. I thought they meant that it took courage to open yourself up to someone else, that it is a risk to be vulnerable, and to love when they might stop loving you. It was a risk to take the chance that you might be hurt.

All of that exists, of course, but it all exists on the outside. The true risk as I see it is kind of hard to explain, it is hard to even really grasp on an intellectual level, but I can feel it. It is about being willing to love in a complete void, perhaps forever, and be okay with that. Of course, it might not be a complete void... but it means loving without a single expectation just because that person is worthy of it. Getting nothing back, perhaps ever, is the biggest risk of all, and real love doesn't care about that.

It doesn't pine. It doesn't hope or expect. It doesn't try to mold or shape or twist or manipulate. It just is.

Maybe that doesn't make any sense... and of course, those who are tremendously lucky bestow their absolute love on people who give it back in kind. Parents, children, their soul mate, dear friends. I haven't been that lucky yet, but on the emotional scale of things, I am a newborn. I have just begun this journey, so to have come through the levels of risk to realize that I actually love someone completely without fear... my God, how many people EVER achieve that?

I am way ahead of the game.

So, no, I don't need to save anyone. I don't need them to need me in order to feel safe and secure. I love because it is in my nature to do so, and I can accept people as they are, choosing from that whether or not to include them in my life. I am not without desire. I am not without hope. But I AM without expectation.

My god, what a gift I have been given. This coming year promises to be amazing if it brings only half the miracles that this one brought.
 

I never understood the sad christmas thing. No matter where I was, how far I was from family, etc. I always loved Christmas. This year I have done everything I can think of to infuse myself with Christmas spirit, and I just can't find any. All I seem to find are tears.

Okay, some of that is no doubt due to the fact that I am sick. I feel like complete crap right now thanks to the flu.

Mostly though, I think it is due to not being happy with my life. I have evolved beyond the life I have lived up until now. It feels as though it is closing in around me, and as yet, I can't find a way out.

As well, this year I am not where I want to be or with the person I want to be with. So, mostly I just want it to be over with and done. It doesn't feel like Christmas to me, and the sooner it is over, the better.

Don't get me wrong. I am aware of the blessings that infuse my life. I love my friends, and my family. I have had a complete change of life this year. Gone on adventures, experienced a lot of different levels of intimacy that I couldn't have imagined a year ago. I have fallen in love. It has been a remarkable year...

No wonder my non-remarkable life seems so small and confining.

I was told to close my eyes and make a wish a few minutes ago. I can't tell it or it won't come true, but basically it is about the wondrous things I have found this year continuing to evolve to a place that sees me happy and being able to make others just as happy.

Maybe. Just maybe it'll come true.
 

If I truly knew a Genie, I would make these three wishes.

One: That my family and friends would all find happiness and peace. That those who wish for companionship would find it, and those who are searching for inner peace would be granted it. And that the ones who need some extra money would have enough to get by comfortably.

Two: The I could find some way in my life to truly make a difference in the world. To truly alleviate suffering and want on at least a medium sort of scale. Yep. If I could accomplish only one thing in my whole life, it would be this.

Three: That I would fall asleep Christmas Eve and wake up the next morning surrounded by love and family. To spend the rest of my life enveloped in the strong arms of a man who adores me, the growing arms of children, the pains and joys and ugly and beautiful, the tears and the laughter and everything else that goes with being part of a normal, loving family. It's a selfish wish, but it truly is all I want for myself. I've spent so long without it... I don't want to live the rest of my life feeling the lack. I can of course, but would prefer not to.

So, there they are. My wishes this christmas. I hope they come true some day.


 

When I was seven or so, I became numb. I lived numb until I left home. Then I lived crazy for nearly twelve years. My life was all over the place emotionally as well as physically and geographically. It was too painful to sit still for too long.

Then my emotional life settled, even though the rest of it stayed crazy until 2000. Then things settled completely. One line of work, one place to live for long periods of time... settled. That calmness gave me a place to jump off from, a place to start hoping from when chance came along and said, you know, maybe you could have more.

I never was the most important thing to anyone. My parents were always more worried about themselves. I never mattered that much anywhere. Secretly, I always harbored the dream that someday I would be the most important thing in the world to someone else.

But, I guess that isn't realistic is it? Sure, it happens to some people... they would move anywhere, do anything to be with the person they love, but it isn't the norm, right?

I don't really expect anyone to make up for the fact that my parents never showed me that caring. How could anyone? They couldn't. That is an issue that I deal with on my own, and for the most part am now totally cool with. Except for days like today when I want to grab my parents, shake them and blame them for the battles I have to fight every day. That too solves nothing, and I will quickly get over it and be all right with the past again.

Even though I don't expect anyone to make up for what I lacked then, man wouldn't I love to find someone who could offer me those things now. Love, acceptance, emotional safety... family... they are dreams I have.

But again, not the norm, especially for a girl like me. So, I will try to set those dreams aside and soldier on. Try to find my settled place again. Try to find some equilibrium.
 

...am I dwelling in silence? How am I to react to the silence? As far as I know, I have committed no offence. The tone of the small amount of contact has been favorable... So am I to react or continue as I have been... just waiting to see if the silence ends? *shrugs* I don't know.